Resolution
by Alis Volat Propris
Summary: It was her resolution, her unwavering faith and conviction that had changed his. Neji/Ino. Happy New Year everyone!


AN: I think Ino really does have deep reasons for loving Sasuke, just as deep as Sakura who we're finding out is more shallow than any of us are comfortable with. And so I wrote this, in an attempt to defend Ino's feelings, and also because I love Neji Ino and I think the two would do well together.

The fireworks lit up the sky, spirals of brilliant color flashing across the air of Konoha in spectacular beams of glowing tinged light. Ino couldn't blame the citizens joy though she had no desire to participate in it. Every step they came closer was a step closer to ...his death. Ino didn't want to focus on that thought. The citizens had a lot to celebrate, needed to have something exciting in light of the tragedy. They had finally finished the rebuilding, had defeated their major enemies, Akatsuki, Madara, and Danzo. Now only one man remained. Cerulean eyes took in the fireworks with a heavy heart. It was a new year and a year without Asuma, a year without a lot of people that should have been there, Sakura, the rest of the rookie ten, Sasuke....

Ino's eyes dimmed on thinking of that last name. He had turned into a person she no longer knew, a person she really couldn't say she wanted to know now, inspite of her feelings for him. She was ashamed to know him, ashamed to think he was capable of something so dark and really the Sasuke she knew, or thought she knew wasn't capable of such. Had he become so blind on his path to avenge his family? Sasuke still hadn't returned home and for the first time in her entire life, Ino Yamanaka's faith wavered in him. She could no longer ignore the things that he had done in blatant antagonizing evil against Konoha. Good people had died. Good people she knew had died by his hands. And so her melancholy aura spread, as she rested her chin moodily on the brick casting around her two story house, watching the fireworks fizzle out from her rooftop patio.

"Evening" The mellow tone was familiar, the greeting too.

"Neji" Ino said, perking just a little bit at the chocolate haired jounin prodigy. "What are you doing here?"

"Looking for you" He told her haughtily as if that should be obvious.

Neji grabbed her family's folding lawn chair and placed it by her moping perch, sitting on it backwards as he leaned his elbows on the seats back, resembling and mimicking her own posture. Ino rolled her eyes as she turned back to her moping spot.

"Liking the fireworks?" He offered.

She shrugged.

Neji sighed. He knew the expression in those eyes and it was always a subject of sore contention between them and particularly a subject he hated her to be so aptly focused on. One Uchiha prodigy, the last of his kind, and a man who no more deserved her feelings, than he had so callousedly tossed them aside. He had tossed her aside and everything he had known for revenge.

"They won't kill him you know" He told her, as the fireworks splashed across her cerulean eyes, eyes that seemed to be permanently downcast. Neji knew better and could sometimes cause a spark of laughter, a hint of a smile. It gave him hope for her.

Ino didn't even bother with an angry retort, she settled for a glare and another roll of her eyes, returning to the fireworks as she drew a circle into the brick with her finger, ignoring his look. She lost focus, the circle she drew with her finger beginning to take form. The sharingan had three blades when it wasn't a mangekyou. She had rarely seen Sasuke with his activated and never with the newest set of eyes rumored to be in his gaze.

"Naruto won't let them. Neither will I." He told her. "So don't be upset anymore" He practically ordered, though those pearlescent eyes were full of worry and anxiety.

Anxiety for her. Ino sighed, and sat up stretching her stiff back muscles pressing her arms and pushing her shoulders back, rolling them to loosen the stiffness. She caught the Hyuuga's pointed look and not for the first time wondered if there was a hidden reason behind their new found friendship. Ino stiffened before settling against her chair. If there was, Ino didn't want to read into it. She liked the way things were between them now.

"I know that" She replied, a little sheepish for needing the reaffirmation and for it actually meaning something coming from him. When had things gotten this way between them? Ino usually wasn't so moody and sappy, though these past few years had taken their toll on her. The un-defeatable, I'm better than you all attitude had broken, shattered as her sensei's body had been.

"I'm not going to stop asking. Why?" Neji told her.

He wanted an answer from her. They were friends now, had worked hard to get beyond their former prejudices against one another. They had found, in fact, that they made a good team once they'd settled their differences. It was well past time she was honest with him about her feelings for the raven haired Uchiha prodigy. He had written off her feelings for years, shrugging it off and making it up and out to be a stupid obcessive fan girl's dream. But then he had gotten to know Ino, had got beyond the surface level with her and her thoughts and emotions and he had realized that she wasn't the shallow person she portrayed and broadcasted to the world. She was fragile, thus the desperate need for her loud and self proclaiming attitude. He realized that she actually cared deeply for him and Neji for one found himself jealous at such an unwavering, undeserved loyalty from the bold Yamanaka girl. Even when they'd first started working together, she wasn't intimidated or impressed with him, a quality he found he loved in her.

He didn't have to impress her, and she wasn't intimidated to speak her mind to him, even when it wasn't easy, or simple. But she never lied to him, and she never coddled him, or sugar coated things with him. She was real and honest, which made her praise short, and surprisingly sweeter because when she did give it, it was genuine and sincere, and he could count on that from her. Could expect that from her. Neji was never one to back down from a challenge and there was nothing more challenging that the buxom blonde who sat currently moping on a night she should be celebrating, enjoying like every other girl her age. Ino had refused to go to the ceremony, though he had even put forth the effort of asking her. She'd been busy, or so she'd said. Dating a shadow must take an awful lot of time, he thought bitterly.

Ino sighed, raking a hand through mussed bangs. She knew what he was asking. Why hadn't she given up on him? Why hadn't she stopped loving him? Why was she so upset over a man who wasn't worth her pity or her tears? They had been through this argument, down this bend in their friendship many times over the past year, and Ino still couldn't find the words to speak, what to tell him. She knew that Sasuke had chosen his path, had made his bed, and now he had to lie in it. But her heart couldn't let go, wasn't satisfied with this end for a man, a boy she had loved for so long.

"I know it's not some stupid rivalry. You wouldn't have cried over a rivalry when the decision was made to persue him." Neji prompted for her.

"It's not a dead promise to Asuma, because though you promised not to lose to Sakura, you still had feelings for him from the beginning" Neji stated.

Damn his powers of observation. Stupid Brilliant Byakugan user, Ino thought angrily.

"I don't know how to tell you." Ino replied, forlorn.

"Then try" Neji replied with a friendly nudge to her side.

Ino looked into his eyes and expected arrogance, stubborn determination and that haughty pride she so often made him choke on. She was surprised when she found warmth, compassion and something else in those purple pearlescent eyes, something that dusted her cheeks with a color sakura might have envied as she turned from him.

"I just...I don't know anymore." Ino replied eyes soft and vulnerable as they stared at the night sky.

Neji waited. Maybe she would tell him. Maybe this time she would trust him, could trust him with her heart that felt more strongly about things than he ever could have previously anticipated. He was downright shocked when she began to speak.

"It happened when we were kids. Though he tried to act so tough...it was just-He was so...so lonely." She said, licking her lips as she searched for the words.

"Go on" Neji encouraged, patient as he waited for her.

"I knew he acted that way because he didn't have a family. Daddy had told me about him and his family. That I should be nice to him. I didn't want to, at first. Daddy had been mad at me for treating him badly at the playground. Ha ha, I was spanked for it." She said, smiling a true smile as she was lost in the memory.

It was a memory Neji would cherish, her true smile lighting her eyes, making them dance in his vision, and making her all the more lovely, warming her face, and features.

"But after he said that Sasuke had no family...had no one to tuck him in at night and read him stories and hold his hand..... then it was like...like I could see it in his gaze." Ino said, saying more on the subject matter than she had in the entire time he had known her.

"Though he tried to hide it, though he acted like he was so tough. I realized it was just that, an act. And I determined that I wanted to get behind his surface. I wanted to see the boy who was hiding behind the prodigy. But I didn't know how to do it. And I was too ashamed to approach him in understanding, honestly. And so I did it, in the way I saw the older girls appealing to their crushes. I showered him, and smothered him and used every opportunity to be close to him."

"I realized shortly that that tactic didn't work, and by that time Sakura had started to emulate me, in an attempt to make him pay attention to her." Ino said.

"So I had determined to work just as hard as he did with jutsu to get him to acknowledge me. I was the top girl in the academy, smart, talented, I had everything going for me. But then I started falling for my own hype. I got lazy and caught up in fighting with the other girls and gossiping. I got sucked into that, and somewhere along the way I lost him and her." Ino said, eyes full of fire.

She was angry, indignant at her own selfishness. Neji was surprised by the self vehemence she had. They were so alike. He had hated himself for his pride for so long, had hated who he had become.

"When I fought Sakura, I'd realized what I'd become. I suppose I should have thanked her, but it wasn't in me at the time. And I was so angry for her accusing me of being so shallow and superficial. That wasn't who I really was on the inside. I determined after that fight to never again let that happen. To not be that kind of person again"

"I'm confident." She said. "and I suppose that will always come across as arrogance, but I don't want to be considered shallow, and vain. I don't want to be conceited and spoiled. I'm a Yamanaka and a Kunoichi, above being a woman and anything else and I never want to be mistaken for that again." Ino said with conviction.

Ino had been painted wrong all this time. Had been discriminated against because of who she'd been, not who she was becoming, the beautiful woman with passionate conviction that she was now. How often did she have to defeat her shadow, did she have to work to gain the opinion of those who had written her off so long ago?

She had won him over, had convinced him that she wasn't who she'd been. That she was something better, newer, maturer than she'd been before. And he was the only one who knew, who'd given her the chance because he knew what second chances meant to people like them. Ino had earned it, had proved herself to him, to others time and time again.

"Thank you for finally telling me." He told her sincerely.

"You're welcome" She retorted with a snort, as if it hadn't been a big deal in the first place. Neji chuckled wryly.

"So what was your New years resolution, since I suppose I already told you mine?" Ino asked him, as the finale of the fireworks crescendoed, lighting up the sky and her face with it's techni-colored splendor.

"That I can get to know you better." He replied without heisitation, without wavering.

Ino's eyes widened in shock and then narrowed in suspicion and distrust. "You don't....really" She said trying to laugh it off.

"It's not funny." Neji told her, serious as ever. "You amaze me, Ino. Your passion, your determination. I wish..." He bit off the sentence, turning from her.

Ino grabbed his sleave, tugging so that he was forced to face her. For though she was afraid of the unspoken words in his eyes she recoiled, determined. She wouldn't hide from them, from him. This was too important for him to stop now.

"I wish you would Let me try to be the kind of man you could idolize." He murmured, words betraying the secret he'd kept so close for so long.

Ino's eyes widened again, blue framed by the white of her eyes.

"I shouldn't have done this after you talked about him like that. I know you that you love him, Ino and I'm not suggesting that you stop loving him. But I'm not afraid anymore. I'm not afraid to try, even though there may be no hope" Neji told her, grabbing her arm, forcing her to stay when the girls looks had threatened her bolting.

Ino trembled. "Why?" She murmured. "Are you a glutton for punishment or something, you idiot? I'm a train wreck! I'm moody, tempermental, hormonal! I dont even know what I'm feeling half the time, and I just confessed to you that I'm in love with another guy!" She exclaimed, grabbing his arm and clenching her fist in his loose fitting gi.

"Because I love you." He told her. "Because of that, I'm not afraid anymore of rejection." He told her, hand latching around her waist, and pulling her towards him.

Blonde eye brows drew together as those blue eyes shot fire, her struggling against him.

"Neji, stop it."

"Tell me you mean that and I will" He told her. "I'm not trying to hurt you or force you, but you know that" He told her sincerely.

It was true that if she'd been thinking clearly with her senses, she would have realized that with a tiny amount of chakra she could have broken his hold and him. He wouldn't have stopped her either, of that Ino knew. For as bold as this man was, as arrogant and cocky and demanding as he would seem, she knew beyond the shadow of a doubt, that he would never hurt her, would never force her to do anything she didn't want to, or allude to.

Ino's brain hadn't caught up with her yet, as she was far too distracted with those pearlescent eyes frazzling her thoughts and senses. Distracted with the feel of his warm delicious pressure on her waist, the feel of his arm, his hand around her waist holding her close to him. But these thoughts were too late as it all seemed to hit her. This realization of the position she was in, of what the Hyuuga's devious smile was suggesting, proved far too late as he pulled her closer against him and his pale lips met her own taking advantage of her mind frazzled moment. Ino however, was a fighter, a struggler, and she fought him, angry at him pressing her, at being so bold and persistent with her. Angry at him being right, though she'd die before admitting it. So she fought, pressing her hands against his chest, trying to push away. Neji would have none of it. Ino gasped, her rational thoughts of him being an asshole and his tongue trailing the seam of her lips contradicting her convictions of irrational irateness.

"Tell me you didn't feel anything." He ordered as he released her, the girl still struggling.

"What I feel involves a jinchuriki level attack through your head and a shovel to bury the evidence" She snarled. "What the hell was that?" She demanded practically yowling at him in her anger.

"That was my sincerity." He replied with a grin.

"You know what Neji you can take your sincerity and shove it up your ass because that was completely uncalled for- and-"

"If you stopped being so indignant about it you'd realize you liked it, and even if just for a moment, you kissed me back." Neji finished for her.

Ino blinked and spluttered as she saw red. and then his words hit her. Oh gods. For that split second of a moment, she had. Mortified as her cheeks turned red, Ino glared her outright fury.

Neji smirked like a cat that had drank the milk and gotten the fish too. He had rendered her speachless if only for a moment.

"Don't think that means anything." She snarled, turning from him. "I should castrate you, or better yet tell Shikamaru and Chouji and have them kick your worthless prodigy ass."

"For someone who doesn't care for me, you seem to care an awful lot about my ass" Neji commented, watching her turn that lovely shade of plum red again.

"Shuddup. and don't think for one moment that you're off the hook for this bucko-" She snarled as she continued her rant, poking him in the chest to emphasize certain points of her temper.

Neji merely smiled at her antics, taking it in stride. After all she was his new years resolution, one he planned on following through on this year.


End file.
